The exhaustion epidemic: How to stop feeling tired in six weeks... But are you too worn out to read this?

Last week I was a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I had jetlag after a five-day working trip to the U.S., my husband was ill in bed, but had to write five articles and a book review of an 800-page novel that, as yet, remained unread.

Meanwhile, my one-year-old had a cold and was teething, so woke me up six or seven times every night, while the five-year-old wanted his Disney DVD at 6am. And, no, we don't have a nanny.

When I did make it to the school gates, I looked at the fresh-faced mothers who don't work with wonder, envy and a teensy bit of bile.

Shattered: Like Rowan Pelling, many modern women feel that they are running on empty

On Wednesday evening, I had to rush to London to chair a film event
at the ICA. I managed to catch the last train home to Cambridge,
arriving back at 1.30am.

By Thursday, I was mainlining espressos and had the baby's cold and a
temperature of 104. I'd written only two of the pieces and was sobbing
quietly over the stale hot-cross buns that were lunch.

I emailed my editor and said: 'I think I'm too exhausted to write that article on why women are so exhausted all the time.'

Spent

So Dr Frank Lipman's new book Spent, with its seductive subtitle End
Exhaustion And Feel Great Again, landed on my desk like a lifeboat in a
force-nine gale.

Lipman's book is aimed at a particular breed of wrung-out modern woman.

In his introductory chapter, he talks of Emily, his typical 'spent'
patient: 'When the alarm rings, Emily groans and hits the snooze
button. Lying there dreading the second ring, she feels dead on her
feet before she is even on them.'

Emily has dull skin and hair, puffy eyes, and relies on caffeine, sugary snacks and carbohydrates to get her through the day. She is constantly guilty about all the chores left undone, 'but she soldiers on - fending off and engaging with emails, phone calls, bills, employers and employees, children's schoolwork, family projects and her husband's life.'

Her brain is foggy, she's always distracted, she's too tired to see her friends and even too exhausted for sex.

My own relationship with the alarm's snooze button is pathological, and the last time I bounced out of bed was 1993.

I emailed 24 female friends asking them if, by any chance, they felt spent.

Taking time out to relax is not something many modern women have the time for - their days are very busy

'Where to start?' wrote my friend Cora, a divorcee with three teenage children, who runs her own business
in London.

Her day begins at 5.30am, she walks the dog, goes to yoga,
gets the children ready for school, heads for the office, works
non-stop and doesn't finish until 8pm.

Then she rushes home to make supper, do the cleaning and laundry and
visit the supermarket. She takes work home at the weekend and struggles
to fit it around her children's complex schedule.

She was so shattered at one point last year that she fell asleep on the
Tube, missed her stop, and awoke at the end of the line to find that a
thief had stolen £2,000 cash that she was taking home to pay her
builder.

She wrote: 'And yesterday, my 16-year-old daughter rang from Swindon at
3am to tell me she had split up with her boyfriend and was standing
outside somebody's house in the freezing cold, and could I get in the
car immediately and drive 67 miles to pick her up...'

Molly, a documentary-maker based in Newcastle, with two pre-school age
children, wrote and said she'd been working ludicrous hours all over
the country on her new film and just that morning had, at 6am, 'poured
the milk in the bin instead of the coffee cup'.

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But Molly counts herself lucky. Her best friend is a college lecturer
who kept her baby under her desk in a car-seat for the first two months
of his life because he was too young for nursery and she was so anxious
about losing her job that she didn't dare take time off.

Molly also knows of a female scientist who was so tired one day that
she forgot to drop her infant off at nursery. Halfway through the
morning, a security guard at her firm came into the room and announced
there was a baby in her car.

The holistic approach

It would appear that Dr Lipman is on to something. Lipman is South
African by birth and when, as a young medic, he worked in poor black
townships, he noticed that the inhabitants almost never suffered from
the depressions, aches and failures of the auto-immune system that
beleaguered his rich, white patients.

Women like Germaine Greer have a lot to answer for, say some of Rowan's very tired acquaintances

Later, he went on to study Chinese medicine and acupuncture and became
increasingly interested in a more holistic approach to health, where
you don't just treat physical symptoms with a quick-fix pill, but try
to root out and eliminate the underlying causes.

His book identifies the key irritants that exacerbate our sense of
exhaustion: poor diet, lack of exercise or even over-exercising,
filling our bedrooms with electronic equipment on standby (so our
nights are never dark and peaceful) and being out of touch with our
bodies' natural rhythms.

Spent is a detailed six-week programme including recipes and relaxation
exercises to wean the reader off such pernicious modern crutches as
caffeine, alcohol and nicotine. In other words, all the crutches I, and
all of my friends, use to get us through the day.

So how did so many smart and sassy women end up so damn exhausted all
the time? My friend Cora wrote that 'our suffragette grandmothers would
be turning in their graves about the level and range of
responsibilities that have been visited upon us'.

She adds: 'Frankly the Germaine Greers of this world have a lot to
answer for because, while they may have helped us break through the
glass ceiling, they failed to understand that in the final analysis the
women would be left holding the babies and paying the bills.'

As several of my friends pointed out, exhaustion starts from the moment
you are told to breast-feed on demand, multiply that through several
more babies and, shortly after that, you find yourself on a treadmill
of play-dates, swimming lessons, football fixtures and general
chauffeuring.

And as your family grows, you need a bigger house, making you a mortgage slave for most of your adult life.

One of my friends said she didn't think the modern career women with
washing machines and cleaners had any right to complain; not by
comparison to our gadget-free grandmothers in the war.

Are we better off than our grandmothers?

But I disagree. For starters, I don't have a cleaner. My middle-class
maternal grandmother, who was comfortable but not affluent, had a
gardener and a home-help, and never needed to work while bringing up
her three children. She led a vibrant social life, and wasn't plagued
by 40 urgent emails every day.

Furthermore, women of my grandmother's generation weren't under
pressure to climb the greasy career pole while simultaneously being
hands-on mothers and domestic goddesses. Nobody thought them cruel
beasts if they sent their children to boarding school and spent the day
playing bridge and drinking cocktails.

Poorer women would often chuck their kids out of the house all day and
tell them to amuse themselves. They didn't beat themselves up because
they weren't making cakes. My mother, meanwhile, did work herself to
the bone because she had a pub and five children to keep, but that was
unusual in those days.

Most of the other mums in our Sevenoaks milieu led leisured lives. I remember my school-friend Sally and I (both on assisted
places at our smart girls' school) marvelling at the non-working
gin-and-Jag-belt mothers with their luxurious houses, skiing holidays
and tennis lessons.

The typical working woman

Sally said: 'Those women have got it made.'

But 23 years later, she has
made a tactical error in marrying my brother, a freelance TV producer -
meaning she finds herself living near Sevenoaks, but a working mother
of three children aged eight and under.

She sent me her typical day's itinerary, of which I offer a truncated
version: 'Wake up at 6am, empty dishwasher, clear up supper stuff that
I was too exhausted to wash up the night before. Make three lunch
boxes, get breakfast, get uniforms out (praying that they're not still
wet in the washing machine).

'At 8.25am I set off to work, hope car doesn't break down as haven't
had time to have it serviced and it's making funny noises and running
out of fuel. At 9am, I run into work, whip off coat, turn on computer,
make it look like I've been in for hours: work, deadlines, more work,
more deadlines.

'Mad dash to bus stop at 4pm to collect the children, 7pm kids' bath;
often extended by late appearance of nits, so three lots of nit
treatment, 9pm husband's supper, 9.30pm ironing and 10pm fall asleep on
sofa. Midnight wake up on sofa, bad neck, go to bed with make-up on and
the shirt I've been wearing all day.'

And that, she assures me, is a good day.

Men take the back seat

My sister-in-law is hardly alone. Only this week a survey found that,
even when both parents work, women find themselves doing 40 per cent
more household chores than their husbands.

Even a well-heeled friend of mine, who doesn't have to work and has
help with her four children, said that she thought this generation had
stresses that our forebears never dreamt of: 'For example, I cooked an
incredible healthy meal of fish, baked squash with honey and balsamic
vinegar, and fresh green vegetables. The children wouldn't eat it.

'Next, I had to design and get together a circus-themed outfit for
World Book Day. Finally, I went for a run because I need to stay young
and thin like all the Hampstead mummies and, of course, Kylie Minogue
because she is OUR AGE!'

Another key complaint is nobody has time for sex.

One married friend wrote: 'Bed is purely for sleeping these days.'
Another woman wrote: 'With two young kids, part-time work and studying
for my degree as a mature student, sex has became a chore; one of the
jobs to be done before I can relax and have a glass of wine.

Sex sapped

Another friend wrote that her libido is sapped on all sides: 'When
you're running a company, you have people calling you at all hours, so
you have your laptop and phone in bed with you, acting as
prophylactics. And when your boyfriend does make a move, you realise
you haven't had a leg or bikini wax for months, and you feel as sexy as
a Yeti.'

Gerad Kite, of Bond Street's Kite Clinic, is one of Britain's leading
fertility acupuncturists. He says many of the women he sees have
experienced severe dips in libido because of their taxing lifestyles.

He says: 'Women are juggling so many different roles these days that
some balls get dropped. Sex is frequently one of the first to fall and,
like anything left alone too long, it's hard to get going again.'

Kite also points out that this modern brand of exhaustion has a direct
affect on women's fertility: 'Nature only wants us to create life if we
have the energy to cope with a new born child, so if the energy gauge
drops in us, our sex drive drops at the same rate.'

Looking around at my multi-tasking friends, I find it a miracle any of them found the time to breed, let alone raise children.

As for me, I started to read Lipman's book thinking I should give his
'42 simple steps' to a healthier life a go. Lipman outlines ways that
the modern professional woman can be more in tune with her body's
natural programming: eating fresh nutritious food, restoring
instinctive sleep patterns, daily exercise and working down-time into
your schedule.

I got as far as the smoothie ingredients in his 'preparation' chapter
(smoothies are a vital part of the Lipman lifestyle) and saw the
following ingredients listed: organic frozen blueberries, flaxseed oil,
coconut water, raw almond butter... and I felt utterly defeated and
- yes - totally blooming well exhausted.

HOW TO... NOT FEEL EXHAUSTED

Sick and tired of feeling
shattered? Doctor and author FRANK LIPMAN shares his wisdom on how to
feel wide-awake in the day and also guarantee a good night's sleep.

Eliminating caffeine, sugar and alcohol is essential in beating exhaustion

Replace empty
sugars, such as carbonated drinks, with fruit smoothies. Load up on
superfoods such as berries and broccoli to help your body rebalance.
Glutamine supplements reduce craving by tricking the body into thinking
it is getting glucose.

NO PROCESSED FATS

Like sugar, processed fats and processed foods are toxic to the body, particularly if you're run down.

Avoid
hydrogenated fats and trans fats as they not only increase bad
cholesterol, they also block the uptake of good fatty acids such as
omegas three, six and nine - needed for healthy brain functions, eyes,
joints and skin.

EAT EARLY, EAT WELL

By
midday, the body's metabolism is reaching its peak, so make breakfast
and lunch the largest meals of the day and include a larger proportion
of proteins and fats.

As daylight wanes, the body clock slows down the secretion of active hormones and our metabolism.

If
you eat late, include nutrient-packed carbohydrates like fruit,
vegetables and whole grains that will help you relax and detoxify while
you sleep.

MAKE YOUR FOOD MORE COLOURFUL

Phytonutrients
are the biologically active substances responsible for giving foods
their smell, flavour and colour - and they're also thought to protect
the body from disease, acting as anti-inflammatory, detoxifying,
hormone-balancing agents.

The colours in fruit and vegetables house more than 20,000 beneficial chemicals.

SLEEP SMARTER

The first rule for better sleep is don't watch TV in bed - don't use your bed for anything other than sleep or sex.

Many of us are photosensitive, so the light from your TV will make your body think it is still daylight.

Taking small doses of the hormone melatonin (0.5 milligrams) can help you fall asleep.

BREATHE PROPERLY

Take a 'breathing break' before you go to bed to aid a relaxed deep
sleep. Find a comfortable space, sit down and spend five minutes
concentrating on breathing deeply in and out. It is a great way to
settle the mind and relax the body.

CHOOSE GENTLE EXERCISE

Yoga is a great way for stressed-out bodies to stretch and relax
without using up too much energy. Also, practise good posture, which is
essential to help balance your body.

SOAK UP THE SUN

There is no greater healer than the sun, so make the most of lighter nights and brighter days to give your whole body a boost.

Spent: End Exhaustion And Feel Great Again, by Frank Lipman, £10.99, published by Fireside, available from all good bookshops.